Their Identification and Use in LCSH
Edward T. O’Neill, Lois Mai Chan, Eric Childress, Rebecca Dean, Lynn M. El-Hoshy, and Diane Vizine-Goetz
Form subdivisions have always been an important part of the Library of Congress Subject Headings. However, when the MARC format was developed, no separate subfield code to identify form subdivisions was defined. Form and topical subdivisions were both included within a general subdivision category. In 1995, the USMARC Advisory Group approved a proposal defining subfield $v for form subdivisions, and in 1999 the Library of Congress (LC) began indentifying form subdivisions with the new code
However, there are millions of older bibliographic records lacking the explicit form subdivisions coding. Identifying form subdivisions retrospectively is not a simple task. An algorithmic method was developed to identify form subdivions coded as general subdivisions. The algorithm was used to identify 2,563 unique form subdivions or combinations of form subdivions in OCLC’s WorldCat. The algorithm proved to be highly accurate with an error rate estimated to be less than 0.1%. The observed usage of the form subdivisions was highly skewed with the 100 most used form subdivisions or combinations of subdivisions accounting for 90% of the assignments.
Computer Cataloging of Electronic Journals in Unstable Aggregator Databases: The Hong Kong Baptist University Library Experience
Yiu-On Li and Shirley W. Leung
The growth and use of aggregator databases have presented libraries with both new opportunities for collection enhancement and new challenges of bibliographic control. How to integrate full-text electronic journal titles in unstable aggregator databases into a library’s OPAC has been an especially taxing matter for libraries. This article describes the Hong Kong Baptist University Library’s effort to integrate full-text electronic journal titles from three large, unstable aggregator databases into its INNOPAC-based OPAC. The library’s electronic journal computer program (EJCOP) does this in a simple, direct, consistent, and accurate manner and addresses some of the issues elaborated in the January 2000 Final Report of the Task Group on Journals in Aggregator Databases of the Standing Committee on Automation of the Library of Congress Program for Cooperative Cataloging.